Rice political scientist available to comment on limitation of federal oversight of Voting Rights Act

HOUSTON — (July 25, 2013) — Following last month’s Supreme Court decision limiting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Attorney General Eric Holder today announced that the Justice Department would ask a court to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making voting changes for the next decade. Rice University political scientist Robert Stein is available to discuss Holder’s decision.

“Section 3 of the voting rights act may in fact provide a way of getting around the court’s decision to strike down the preclearance requirement of section 5,” Stein said. “States that are now absolved of following a preclearance requirement like Texas can be required to clear any of their proposed changes in election law if a judge finds cause for an adverse effect under the Voting Rights Act.”

Stein is an expert on voting behavior, urban politics and public policy; his publications have appeared in a wide range of scholarly journals. Stein’s current research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and examines the impact of the federal aid system on the electoral trajectories of officeholders at both the subnational and congressional levels. Other research by Stein examines collective action among metropolitan area governments and voting behavior.

To schedule an interview with Stein, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at 612-702-9473 or david@rice.edu.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.

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